8 Supreme Court cases the justices have yet to rule on

The great irony of the Stormy payment is that if Trump had paid her personally, and reported it as a campaign expenditure, it wouldn't have been illegal, just potentially politically embarrassing, which is what he was trying to avoid by having Cohen do it...

And it was so close to the election, there's little chance it would have come out that Trump made the payment anyway.

Not exceptionally bright, these people...

 

Exactly. But, honestly, I don't think the Stormy Daniels payment will be the worst of it. Trump should be more worried about AMI than about Cohen.

1) They don't have the same testimonial credibility issues on the stand as Cohen does.
2) They did this exact same sort of thing with Karen McDougal and, like Cohen, admitted it was a campaign contribution
3) They entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the SDNY at around the same time as all of this Cohen stuff was going on. Both AMI and Cohen admitted to the same crime, but AMI was able to get immunity based on their cooperation, indicating that their cooperation was probably much more valuable than Cohen's.
4) AMI has admitted to many, many other catch-and-kill stories for Donald beyond just the one with McDougal. Any of them that were done to help the campaign would be a similar crime. I seriously doubt McDougal's was the only case of this.

In short, Trump will likely face at least two charges of campaign finance fraud when he leaves office (unless he is successful in installing his cronies in the SDNY). The McDougal case will probably be stronger, and there will probably be more than just these two cases.

 

WTF.........You are not serious ?

FFS.......

 

Lying about the value of your assets on your taxes is a crime. Lying to a bank about the value of your assets when applying for a loan is a crime.

From the documents that have already seen leaked, the Trump Organization keeps different books: one for taxes and one for financing. There are sometimes reasons for this, but most often it is an indication of fraud: either tax fraud, bank fraud, or both.

 

from what?

real estate is appraised not by the owner. do you know anything about real estate?

the.bank the govt, a third party hired by a owner

true on your first points

no it’s not at all an indication of a crime

 

yeah i am...do you actually think you pay property tax to the federal govt?

 

HUSH MONEY IS NOT ILLEGAL...............when will you guys learn that?

Value of assets is subjective especially real estate, collectibles etc. CPA's are CPA's whether they work for Trump or an outside and yes they not only fear going to jail but losing their licenses. And again go to a bank and try to get a second mortgage on your house based on just what YOU tell them YOU think it is worth. They will do their own valuation. If I think my house is worth $200K and the say nope they think $150K I have not committed a crime. We come to an agreement on how much they will loan me. Any bank which relies solely on the valuation of a property given by the prospective borrower doesn't need to be in business.

 

So you’re telling me bank fraud is impossible to commit? Lmao!

Woodson induced Fort Sill National Bank to loan her and another person $1,013,902 by making false representations to the bank, according to the plea information. In particular, Woodson overstated the value of her interest in assets, including a condominium in Snowmass, Colo., and a closely held real estate company. She also understated her liabilities to other banks by approximately $3 million.

 

Nobody said Duetsch bank was reputable. Probably why trump prefers them. Defrauding them is still illegal though.
Sort of like this case..:
Woodson induced Fort Sill National Bank to loan her and another person $1,013,902 by making false representations to the bank, according to the plea information. In particular, Woodson overstated the value of her interest in assets, including a condominium in Snowmass, Colo., and a closely held real estate company. She also understated her liabilities to other banks by approximately $3 million.

 

no i am not saying that...jeep desperately grabbing

 

You can't present an INDICTMENT to a sitting President, they can bring forward CHARGES they want to indict and if serious enough send to the Congress requesting an impeachment and removal. Were you around during the Clinton years? Clinton was charged by the Independent Prosecutor with SPECIFIC FELONIES. That was submitted to Congress and he was impeached but the Democrats said perjury, obstruction of justice, subornation of perjury and witness tampering in a federal court and before a federal grand jury did not warrant removal from office. Cohen was in jail for his OWN doings not Trump's.

 

Trump will win Trump V Vance, because otherwise is a violation of the Fourth Amendment(and the SCOTUS knows it.). In fact, I'm going to predict a 9-0, 8-1 or 7-2 victory count. It's just that etched in precedence. The Fourth Amendment protects all private property and documents from searches or seizures without a warrant. Period.

I can't access Trump's records, you can't and no one can't and I expect the SCOTUS, including a split of the liberal judges to affirm the same.

 

If they can't indict, and Trump has publicly toyed with the idea of pardoning himself, and they know that the Senate will not convict anyway, why charge him? Better to wait until he is no longer in office so that they can actually do something about it.

Cohen is in jail for a crime that he committed. SDNY says they have evidence that Trump directed him to commit this crime. That would make it his crime too.

 

That's Cohen's own doings.

 

It's been investigated and he didn't pay her for the sex, that was never a claim.

 

Trump sure as hell had knowledge of it and likely directed it.

 

The SDNY case is weak and extraordinarily circumstantial. If Trump has a good lawyer worth his chops, if it gets there he'll be acquitted.

 

You can't call it "circumstantial" if you don't know their evidence. The SDNY doesn't play around. In the very least it looks like they have witness in both Cohen and an unknown number of people at AMI. They wouldn't be likely to bring it up in front of a judge if they didn't have corroborating evidence beyond just Cohen's word.

Check around the 3:30 mark here.

 

OK.. he paid her so she wouldn't talk about the sex.... Trump needs to make that clear in his plea agreement....

If he had paid her for the sex (say, within 8-9 years of it), it wouldn't have been a problem...

 

Mr. Napolitano is overstating it a bit. Yes, they believe they have a case, and yes they want to bring that case. But if it were that simple(and thank god it isn't) that prison overpopulation issue the Left pointed out? It'd probably be triple its amount of residents.

I loosely remember the circumstances back when this was first reported around 2017-2018, and if I were Trump's lawyer the first thing I would do is point out the fact that Michael Cohen used his OWN properties to get the loan. Not any properties from the Trump Organization or from Donald Trump himself, but Cohen's own properties.

So it doesn't fly, in the slightest to suggest that Trump told Cohen to falsely sign his own properties in his own name for financial benefit. People don't commit crimes to benefit themselves for other people.

 

@Bluesguy

Also, when you talk about Clinton, I'm pretty sure you are talking about civil charges. The DOJ makes a distinction between the president's susceptibility to civil vs criminal charges.

"Indictment alone risks visiting upon the President the disabilities that stem from the stigma and opprobrium associated with a criminal charge, undermining the President’s leadership and efficacy both here and abroad. Initiation of a criminal proceeding against a sitting President is likely to pose a far greater threat than does civil litigation of severely damaging the President’s standing and credibility in the national and international communities. While this burden may be intangible, nothing in the Supreme Court’s recent case law draws into question the Department’s previous judgment that “ to wound [the President] by a criminal proceeding is to hamstring the operation of the whole governmental apparatus, both in foreign and domestic affairs.”

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/2000/10/31/op-olc-v024-p0222_0.pdf

 

Again, you make this statement unaware of the evidence.

They DID make that argument. The reason this argument fails is that Trump repaid Cohen, something he initially denied doing.

 

Whether he repaid Cohen, or whether he didn't repay Cohen. The fact remains that the crime was only financially beneficial to Michael Cohen, and Cohen alone. If the crime were what the SDNY said it was, we'd expect for it to be a Trump-related property and/or benefit, but that's not what happened here.

 

How did Cohen financially benefit from the exchange? At best he broke even. Also, who claimed that Trump benefited financially? Literally no one. This was about political benefit, not financial benefit. Same goes for the hush money to McDougal.

You are really going to sit here and play make believe that you don't understand how Trump paying off a mistress for her silence would be to his benefit? Really? That's just sad.

 

Yes, actually.(We can also argue (or we would as lawyers) whether or not political benefit actually qualifies under the campaign finance laws. That is, is it a "donation to the campaign", if it doesn't functionally go towards campaigning,or voting or anything therein? I argue that it doesn't, but it's a wholly separate argument that we could go all day on, because the courts have been mixed on it at best.

But the reason it doesn't, is pretty simple. Let's presume all of these affairs got out. Politically damaging? There's no way of knowing that, but even if it were politically damaging it's not a function of a political entity to cover up that information even if there's political benefit to the person running. In other words, the Trump "campaign" is neither an actor nor a beneficiary per se.

Only Donald Trump the person benefits from this, in hiding the derogatory information. (Note: Both John Edwards and Obama ran into this law as well, it's honestly so dubious it should be stricken as a law altogether, but that's another separate argument.)

I don't even believe it should be a felony, it should be classified as a misdemeanor if it's a crime at all. That's how weak the stature we're arguing is.

Now, to the other part. How did Cohen benefit? He lied to the banks on his properties to take out the loan, and then Trump paid him. So that's two sources of income, probably in the mold of at least $500,000. Not a bad cash grab for a guy who "followed Trump".

Cohen's argument that "the President made me do this" falls flat in his own financial gains and his own criminality.